Has NISMO Really Gone To The Toilet? O.K., I Checked

This must be the coincidence of the week. Yesterday, The Drive lambasted Nissan for allegedly having “turned its back on NISMO, and that’s a damned shame.” Today, Nissan asked journalists to come to NISMO’s Omori factory between Tokyo and Yokohama for a “briefing on our plans to enhance and expand the NISMO road car lineup.” Nissan will push its NISMO performance line heavily, and globally, we heard today.

Bertel Schmitt

This scale model "costs more than a house."

No, the event wasn’t a quick reaction to The Drive’s takedown. The event has been planned for more than a month.

NISMO road cars introduced so far include the GT-R, 370Z, JUKE and Sentra in the U.S. Markets outside the U.S. also got a NISMO Note and Patrol. In the future, Nissan will expand the range of NISMO road cars, and market them more globally, we were promised. Sales of NISMO cars currently are 15,000 units a year, we heard, and NISMO’s boss Takao Katagiri wants more. He hopes, The Drive take note, to push NISMO sales above 100,000 by mid-2020, and he wants to do that with "more than double" the current lineup. A spreading into "other" segments, such as performance EVs, or pickups, is in the cards.

A "first glimpse" of new NISMO models was promised for later in the year.